Although Chinese housing sales have been picking up, boosted by pent-up demand and falling prices, there have been few signs of life in the non-residential property market.

Home sales in China rebounded in the first quarter with the average sales price easing, while rents were mostly steady.

National Bureau of Statistics figures for the first quarter showed that private-sector housing sales volume increased 8.2 percent in 70 large and medium-sized cities, with a 1.3-percent price drop per sq m in March from a year earlier.

In the commercial property market, both sales and prices were up, because people were buying properties for investment. Yet rents were down and vacancies were up, indicating that a rebound in demand was some way off, analysts said.

Chen Sheng, vice president of the China Index Academy (CIA), a private-sector research institute that specializes in real estate, told Xinhua that the rebound of the nation's non-residential property market largely depended on the overall economic situation.

"Unlike homes that are for shelter, the buyers of office buildings, retail and industrial properties purchase them for investment purposes or their own business needs," Chen said.

China's economy expanded by 6.1 percent year on year in the first quarter, the lowest growth rate in 10 years, reflecting the domestic impact of the global downturn.

The economic growth rate was 4.5 percentage points lower than the first quarter of 2008 and down 0.7 percentage points from the previous quarter.

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-05-03 14:57